History

The philanthropist and the founding

On his death in 1873,
Johns Hopkins, a
Quaker entrepreneur and childless bachelor, bequeathed $7 million (approximately $141.2 million today adjusted for consumer price inflation) to fund a hospital and university in Baltimore, Maryland.[22] At that time this fortune, generated primarily from the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,[23] was the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the United States.[6]

The first name of philanthropist Johns Hopkins is the surname of his great-grandmother, Margaret Johns, who married Gerard Hopkins. They named their son Johns Hopkins, who named his own son Samuel Hopkins. Samuel named one of his sons for his father and that son would become the university's benefactor.
Milton Eisenhower, a former university president, once spoke at a convention in
Pittsburgh where the
Master of Ceremonies introduced him as "President of John Hopkins." Eisenhower retorted that he was "glad to be here in Pittburgh."[24]

The original board opted for an entirely novel university model dedicated to the discovery of knowledge at an advanced level, extending that of contemporary Germany.[25] Building on the German education model of
Wilhelm von Humboldt, it became dedicated to research.[26] Johns Hopkins thereby became the model of the modern research university in the United States. Its success eventually shifted higher education in the United States from a focus on teaching revealed and/or applied knowledge to the scientific discovery of new knowledge.[27]

Gilman launched what many at the time considered an audacious and unprecedented academic experiment to merge teaching and research. He dismissed the idea that the two were mutually exclusive: "The best teachers are usually those who are free, competent and willing to make original researches in the library and the laboratory," he stated.[29] To implement his plan, Gilman recruited internationally known luminaries such as the mathematician
James Joseph Sylvester; the biologist
H. Newell Martin; the physicist
Henry A. Rowland (the first president of the
American Physical Society), the
classical scholarsBasil Gildersleeve and Charles D. Morris;[30] the economist
Richard T. Ely; and the chemist
Ira Remsen, who became the second president of the university in 1901.[31]

Gilman focused on the expansion of graduate education and support of faculty research. The new university fused advanced scholarship with such professional schools as medicine and engineering. Hopkins became the national trendsetter in
doctoral programs and the host for numerous scholarly journals and associations.[32] The
Johns Hopkins University Press, founded in 1878, is the oldest American
university press in continuous operation.[33]

Johns Hopkins Hospital

With the completion of
Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889 and the
medical school in 1893, the university's research-focused mode of instruction soon began attracting world-renowned faculty members who would become major figures in the emerging field of academic medicine, including
William Osler,
William Halsted,
Howard Kelly, and
William Welch.[34] During this period Hopkins made more history by becoming the first medical school to admit women on an equal basis with men and to require a
Bachelor's degree, based on the efforts of
Mary E. Garrett, who had endowed the school at Gilman's request.[35] The
school of medicine was America's first coeducational, graduate-level medical school, and became a prototype for academic medicine that emphasized bedside learning, research projects, and laboratory training.

In his will and in his instructions to the trustees of the university and the hospital, Hopkins requested that both institutions be built upon the vast grounds of his Baltimore estate, Clifton. When Gilman assumed the presidency, he decided that it would be best to use the university's endowment for recruiting faculty and students, deciding to, as it has been paraphrased, "build men, not buildings."[36] In his will Hopkins stipulated that none of his endowment should be used for construction; only interest on the principal could be used for this purpose. Unfortunately, stocks in The
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which would have generated most of the interest, became virtually worthless soon after Hopkins's death. The university's first home was thus in Downtown Baltimore delaying plans to site the university in Clifton.[22]

Move to Homewood and early 20th century history

Gilman Hall, flagship building of the Homewood campus

In the early 20th century the university outgrew its buildings and the trustees began to search for a new home. Developing Clifton for the university was too costly, and 30 acres (12 ha) of the estate had to be sold to the city as public park. A solution was achieved by a team of prominent locals who acquired the estate in north Baltimore known as
Homewood. On February 22, 1902, this land was formally transferred to the university. The flagship building, Gilman Hall, was completed in 1915. The
School of Engineering relocated in Fall of 1914 and the
School of Arts and Sciences followed in 1916. These decades saw the ceding of lands by the university for the public Wyman Park and Wyman Park Dell and the
Baltimore Museum of Art, coalescing in the contemporary area of 140 acres (57 ha).[22]

The post-war era

Since 1942, the
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has served as a major governmental defense contractor. In tandem with on-campus research, Johns Hopkins has every year since 1979 had the highest federal research funding of any American university.[40]

These years also brought about the rapid development of the university's professional schools of education and business. From 1999 until 2007, these disciplines had been joined together within the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education (SPSBE), itself a reshuffling of several earlier ventures. The 2007 split, combined with new funding and leadership initiatives, has led to the simultaneous emergence of the
Johns Hopkins School of Education and the
Carey Business School.[46]

On November 18,2018, it was announced that
Michael Bloomberg would make a donation to his alma mater of $1.8 billion, thought to be a record for single donations to an academic institution.[47]

Civil rights

African-Americans

Hopkins was a prominent
abolitionist who supported
Abraham Lincoln during the
American Civil War. After his death, reports said his conviction was a decisive factor in enrolling Hopkins' first
African-American student,
Kelly Miller, a graduate student in physics, astronomy and mathematics.[48] As time passed, the university adopted a "separate but equal" stance more like other Baltimore institutions.

The first black undergraduate entered the school in 1945 and graduate students followed in 1967. James Nabwangu, a British-trained Kenyan, was the first black graduate of the medical school.[49] African-American instructor and laboratory supervisor
Vivien Thomas was instrumental in developing and conducting the first successful
blue baby operation in 1944.[50] Despite such cases, racial diversity did not become commonplace at Johns Hopkins institutions until the 1960s and 1970s.

Women

Hopkins' most well-known battle for women's rights was the one led by daughters of trustees of the university;
Mary E. Garrett,
M. Carey Thomas, Mamie Gwinn, Elizabeth King, and Julia Rogers.[51] They donated and raised the funds needed to open the medical school, and required Hopkins' officials to agree to their stipulation that women would be admitted. The
nursing school opened in 1889 and accepted women and men as students.[52] Other graduate schools were later opened to women by president
Ira Remsen in 1907.
Christine Ladd-Franklin was the first woman to earn a PhD at Hopkins, in mathematics in 1882.[53] The trustees denied her the degree for decades and refused to change the policy about admitting women. In 1893, Florence Bascomb became the university's first female PhD.[51] The decision to admit women at undergraduate level was not considered until the late 1960s and was eventually adopted in October 1969. As of 2009–2010, the undergraduate population was 47% female and 53% male.[54]

Freedom of speech

On September 5, 2013 cryptographer and Johns Hopkins university professor
Matthew Green posted a blog, entitled "On the NSA", in which he contributed to the ongoing debate regarding the role of
NIST and
NSA in formulating U.S.
cryptography standards. On September 9, 2013 Green received a take-down request for the "On the NSA" blog from interim Dean Andrew Douglas from the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering.[55] The request cited concerns that the blog had links to sensitive material. The blog linked to already published news articles from The Guardian, The New York Times and
ProPublica.org. Douglas subsequently issued a personal on-line apology to Green.[56] The event raised concern over the future of academic freedom of speech within the cryptologic research community.

School of Education: Originally established in 1909 as The School of Professional Studies in Business and Education, the divisions of Education and Business became separate schools in 2007.

The first campus was located on Howard Street. Eventually, they relocated to Homewood, in northern Baltimore, the estate of Charles Carroll, son of the oldest surviving signer of the
Declaration of Independence. Carroll's
Homewood House is considered one of the finest examples of Federal residential architecture. The estate then came to the Wyman family, which participated in making it the park-like main campus of the schools of arts and sciences and engineering at the start of the 20th century. Most of its architecture was modeled after the
Federal style of
Homewood House. Homewood House is preserved as a museum. Most undergraduate programs are on this campus.[citation needed]

East Baltimore

Johns Hopkins Hospital

Collectively known as Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (JHMI) campus, the East Baltimore facility occupies several city blocks spreading from the
Johns Hopkins Hospital trademark dome.

School of Nursing: The School of Nursing is one of America's oldest and pre-eminent schools for nursing education. It has consistently ranked first in the nation.

Downtown Baltimore

Peabody Institute

Carey Business School: The Carey Business School was established in 2007, incorporating divisions of the former School of Professional Studies in Business and Education. It was originally located on
Charles Street, but relocated to the Legg Mason building in Harbor East in 2011.

Peabody Institute: founded in 1857, is the oldest continuously active music conservatory in the United States; it became a division of Johns Hopkins in 1977. The Conservatory retains its own student body and grants degrees in musicology and performance, though both Hopkins and Peabody students may take courses at both institutions. It is located on East Mount Vernon Place.

Laurel, Maryland

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL): The APL in Laurel, Maryland, specializes in research for the
U.S. Department of Defense,
NASA and other government and civilian research agencies. Among other projects, it has designed, built, and flown spacecraft for NASA to the asteroid Eros, and the planets Mercury and Pluto. It has developed more than 100 biomedical devices, many in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.[61]

Akin to the Washington, D.C. campus for the School of Arts & Sciences, the APL also is the primary campus for master's degrees in a variety of STEM fields.

Organization

The Johns Hopkins entity is structured as two corporations, the university and The Johns Hopkins Health System, formed in 1986. The President is JHU's chief executive officer, and the university is organized into nine academic divisions.[67]

JHU's bylaws specify a Board of Trustees of between 18 and 65 voting members. Trustees serve six-year terms subject to a two-term limit. The alumni select 12 trustees. Four recent alumni serve 4-year terms, one per year, typically from the graduating class. The bylaws prohibit students, faculty or administrative staff from serving on the Board, except the President as an ex-officio trustee.[68] The Johns Hopkins Health System has a separate Board of Trustees, many of whom are doctors or health care executives.[69]

Undergraduate admissions

The university's undergraduate programs are highly selective: in 2018, the Office of Admissions accepted 8.4% of its 27,091 Regular Decision applicants.[90] In 2016, 95% of admitted students graduated in the top tenth of their high school class and the inter-quartile range on the
SAT composite score was 1440–1560.[91] In 2013, 96.8% of freshmen returned after the first year and 88% of students graduated in 4 years.[92] The average GPA of enrolled freshmen in the class of 2018 is 3.88.[93] Over time, applications to Johns Hopkins University have risen steadily. As a result, the selectivity of Johns Hopkins University has also increased.
Early Decision is an option at Johns Hopkins University for students who wish to demonstrate that the university is their first choice. These students, if admitted, are required to enroll. This application is due November 2. Most students, however, apply Regular Decision, which is a traditional non-binding round. These applications are due January 1 and students are notified in late March.

The main library, constructed in the 1960s, was named for
Milton S. Eisenhower, former president of the university and brother of former U.S. president
Dwight D. Eisenhower. The university's stacks had previously been housed in Gilman Hall and departmental libraries.[104] Only two of the Eisenhower library's six stories are above ground, though the building was designed so that every level receives natural light. The design accords with campus lore that no structure can be taller than Gilman Hall, the flagship academic building. A four-story expansion to the library, known as the Brody Learning Commons, opened in August 2012. The expansion features an energy-efficient, state-of-the-art technology infrastructure and includes study spaces, seminar rooms, and a rare books collection.[105]

Johns Hopkins University Press

The Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running
university press in the United States.[106] To date the Press has published more than 6,000 titles and currently publishes 65 scholarly periodicals and over 200 new books each year. Since 1993, the Johns Hopkins University Press has run
Project MUSE, an online collection of over 250 full-text, peer-reviewed journals in the humanities and social sciences. The Press also houses the Hopkins Fulfilment Services (HFS), which handles distribution for a number of university presses and publishers. Taken together, the three divisions of the Press—Books, Journals (including MUSE) and HFS—make it one of the largest of America's university presses.

Degrees offered

Johns Hopkins offers a number of degrees including BA and BS for undergraduate student and MA, MS and Ph.D.[107] Because Hopkins offers both undergraduate and graduate areas of study, many disciplines have multiple degrees available. Biomedical engineering, perhaps one of Hopkins' best-known programs, offers Bachelor's, Master's, Graduate and Ph.D degrees.[108]

Research

The opportunity to participate in important research is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Hopkins' undergraduate education. About 80 percent of undergraduates perform independent research, often alongside top researchers.[70][109] In FY 2013, Johns Hopkins received $2.2 billion in federal research grants—more than any other U.S. university for the 35th consecutive year.[110] Johns Hopkins has had seventy-seven (77) members of the
Institute of Medicine, forty-three (43)
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators, seventeen (17) members of the
National Academy of Engineering, and sixty-two (62) members of the
National Academy of Sciences. Twenty-seven (27)
Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with the university as alumni or faculty members.[111]

Between 1999 and 2009, Johns Hopkins was among the most cited institutions in the world. It attracted nearly 1,222,166 citations and produced 54,022 papers under its name, ranking #3 globally (after
Harvard University and the
Max Planck Society) in the number of total citations published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals over 22 fields in America.[112]

In FY 2000, Johns Hopkins received $95.4 million in research grants from the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), making it the leading recipient of NASA
research and development funding.[113] In FY 2002, Hopkins became the first university to cross the $1 billion threshold on either list, recording $1.14 billion in total research and $1.023 billion in federally sponsored research. In FY 2008, Johns Hopkins University performed $1.68 billion in science, medical and engineering research, making it the leading U.S. academic institution in total R&D spending for the 30th year in a row, according to a
National Science Foundation (NSF) ranking.[114] These totals include grants and expenditures of JHU's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

The Johns Hopkins University also offers the "Center for Talented Youth" program—a nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and developing the talents of the most promising K-12 grade students worldwide. As part of the Johns Hopkins University, the "Center for Talented Youth" or CTY helps fulfill the university's mission of preparing students to make significant future contributions to the world.[115] The Johns Hopkins Digital Media Center (DMC) is a multimedia lab space as well as an equipment, technology and knowledge resource for students interested in exploring creative uses of emerging media and use of technology.[116]

Others

Student life

Students socializing on The Beach, with Homewood House in the background

Charles Village, the region of North Baltimore surrounding the university, has undergone several restoration projects, and the university has gradually bought the property around the school for additional student housing and dormitories. The Charles Village Project, completed in 2008, brought new commercial spaces to the neighborhood. The project included Charles Commons, a new, modern residence hall that includes popular retail franchises.[127][128] In 2015, the University began development of new commercial properties, including a modern upperclassmen apartment complex, restaurants and eateries, and a CVS retail store.[129]

Hopkins invested in improving campus life with an arts complex in 2001, the Mattin Center, and a three-story sports facility, the O'Connor Recreation Center. The large on-campus dining facilities at Homewood were renovated in the summer of 2006.

Student organizations

Greek life

Greek life came to Hopkins in 1876 with the charter of fraternity
Beta Theta Pi, which still exists on campus today.[130] Since, Johns Hopkins has become home to nine sororities and 11 fraternities. Of the nine sororities, five belong to the
National Panhellenic Conference and four to the Multicultural Greek Council Sororities. Of the fraternities, all 11 belong to the Inter-Fraternity Council. Over 1,000 students participate in Greek life, with 23% of women and 20% of men taking part.[131][132] Greek life has expanded its reach at Hopkins in recent decades, as only 15% of the student body participated in 1989.[133] Rush for all students occurs in the spring. Most fraternities keep houses in Charles Village while sororities do not.

Johns Hopkins Greek life has been largely representative of its increasing diversity with the installment of
Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically black fraternity, in 1991 and
Lambda Phi Epsilon, an Asian-interest fraternity in 1994 among others.[134]

Spring Fair

Spring Fair has been a Johns Hopkins tradition since 1972 and has since grown to be the largest student-run festival in the country.[135] Popular among Hopkins students and Baltimore inhabitants alike, Spring Fair features carnival rides, vendors, food and a
beer garden. Since its beginning, Spring Fair has decreased in size, both in regard to attendance and utilization of space. While one point, the Fair attracted upwards of 100,000 people, it became unruly and, for a variety of reasons including safety concerns and a campus beautification project in the early 2000s, had to be scaled back.[136]

Traditions

Lighting of the Quad

While it has been speculated that Johns Hopkins has relatively few traditions for a school of its age and that many past traditions have been forgotten, a handful of myths and customs are ubiquitous knowledge among the community.[137] One such long-standing myth surrounds the university seal that is embedded into the floor of the Gilman Hall foyer. The myth holds that any current student to step on the seal will never graduate. In reverence for this tradition, the seal has been fenced off from the rest of the room.

An annual event is the Lighting of the Quad, a ceremony each winter during which the campus is lit up in holiday lights. Recent years have included singing and fireworks.

Housing

Alumni Memorial Residence I, a freshman dormitory

Living on campus is typically required for first- and second-year undergraduates.[138] Freshman housing is centered around Freshman Quad, which consists of three residence hall complexes: The two Alumni Memorial Residences (AMR I and AMR II) plus Buildings A and B. The AMR dormitories are each divided into houses, subunits named for figures from the university's early history. Freshmen are also housed in Wolman Hall and in certain wings of McCoy Hall, both located slightly outside the campus. Dorms at Hopkins are generally co-ed with same-gender rooms, though a new policy has allowed students to live in mixed-gender rooms since Fall 2014.[139][140]

Students determine where they will live during Sophomore year through a housing lottery. Most juniors and seniors move into nearby apartments or row-houses. Non-freshmen in university housing occupy one of four buildings: McCoy Hall, the Bradford Apartments, the Homewood Apartments, and Charles Commons.[141] All are located in
Charles Village within a block from the
Homewood campus. Forty-five percent of the student body lives off-campus while 55% lives on campus.[142]

Women's lacrosse

The women's team is a member of the
Big Ten Conference and a former member of the
American Lacrosse Conference (ALC). The Lady Blue Jays were ranked number 18 in the 2015 Inside Lacrosse Women's DI Media Poll.[149] They ranked number 8 in the 2007 Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) Poll Division I. The team finished the 2012 season with a 9–9 record and finished the 2013 season with a 10–7 record. They finished the 2014 season 15–5.[150] On June 17, 2015, it was announced that the Blue Jays would join the Big Ten Conference for women's lacrosse in the 2017 season (2016–17 school year).

Other teams

Hopkins has notable Division III Athletic teams. JHU Men's Swimming won three consecutive
NCAA Championships in 1977, 1978, and 1979.[151] In 2009–2010, Hopkins won 8 Centennial Conference titles in Women's Cross Country, Women's Track & Field, Baseball, Men's and Women's Soccer, Football, and Men's and Women's Tennis. The Women's Cross Country team became the first women's team at Hopkins to achieve a #1 National ranking. In 2006–2007 teams won Centennial Conference titles in Baseball, Men's and Women's Soccer, Men's and Women's Tennis and Men's Basketball. Women's soccer won their Centennial Conference title for 7 consecutive years from 2005–2011. In the 2013–2014 school year, Hopkins earned 12 Centennial Conference titles, most notably from the cross country and track & field teams, which accounted for six.[152]

Hopkins has an acclaimed fencing team, which ranked in the top three Division III teams in the past few years and in both 2008 and 2007 defeated the
University of North Carolina, a Division I team. In 2008, they defeated UNC and won the MACFA championship.[153]

The Swimming team ranked highly in NCAA Division III for the last 10 years, most recently placing second at DIII Nationals in 2008. The Water Polo team was number one in Division III for several of the past years, playing a full schedule against Division I opponents. Hopkins also has a century-old rivalry with
McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College), playing the Green Terrors 83 times in football since the first game in 1894. In 2009 the football team reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III tournament, with three tournament appearances since 2005. In 2008, the baseball team ranked second, losing in the final game of the DIII
College World Series to
Trinity College.[154]

The Johns Hopkins squash team plays in the College Squash Association as a club team along with Division I and III varsity programs. In 2011–12 the squash team finished 30th in the ranking.[155]

^Laura Vozzella (December 15, 2006).
"Cheesecake on the Tart Side". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from
the original on March 20, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2007.: "University spokesman Dennis O'Shea checked with Ross Jones, who was Eisenhower's assistant. And Jones confirmed it... Ross told O'Shea: 'I remember him telling me about it first thing after he got back. He was tickled with himself for picking up on it so quickly with that response. And then it became a legend! He would love the fact that it still has legs.'"